The shopkeeper furrowed his brows and dropped his smile.

‘What part of this plant looks red to you, sister?’

The plant was entirely green, including the bottom of the stem which had a reddish tinge.

He let out a sigh and walked over to the machine to pull the challenge stone out of the socket, but it didn’t budge. Confusion rose up in his eyes as he inspected the machine. His eyes widened in shock at what he saw.

The challenge stone’s egg-white appearance was now glowing pure white. The dials above both stones were quickly rotating in opposite directions. The black keystone seemed to vibrate as it was receiving the accumulated credits from the challenge stone. After several breaths, the dials suddenly stopped—the keystone’s dial had made several full rotations stopping beyond the upper limit of 500,000 while the challenge stone’s dial was reduced to 0.

The challenge stone returned to a slightly darker shade of egg-white and emitted a loud sound that could be heard throughout the apothecary.

“DINGGGGGGGGGGG!”

The two disciples sitting at the desks studying turned their heads when they heard the sound but returned to reading their books soon after. Most disciples had not had the chance to witness a challenge stone’s acknowledgment, so they didn’t pay the sound any mind. On the other hand, the shopkeeper trembled in shock.

He looked at the girl with fearful eyes.

“Does this mean I was correct?” Kenja asked innocently.

The shopkeeper’s mouth went dry as he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times to get it salivating again.

“Ahem....yes, sister! Your answer was correct, and you have successfully completed the challenge. I offer you my congratulations.”

‘I need to tell master someone took down his challenge!’ thought the shopkeeper.

Kenja smiled at the shopkeeper. “Can you tell me how many sect credits I have now?”

The shopkeeper put on his best smile as he replied, “I cannot be too sure since I have never taken the challenge stone to a machine with a large enough measuring capacity, but you have at least two or three million sect credits."

His heart bled at the fact that some new disciple who was only at the Qi Flourishing stage had instantly amassed a fortune that would make the elders droop their heads in shame. He forcefully pushed down his resentment and jealousy. If he could endear himself to this new ‘Queen,’ then he and his business would prosper as well. Perhaps, his master will reward him as a result.

“Will that be enough for one hundred Meridian Nourishment Pills then?”

The shopkeeper nearly coughed up blood when he heard this.

‘Sister, you can afford more than a thousand pills with so many sect points.’

“Yes, sister. There’s no need to pay now either. Since you have more than enough sect points, I will send someone to notify you when your order is done, and you can pay at that time.”

He was intent on luring her back to the shop for more purchases.

“The catalogue I had given you before only contains our current stock, but we can create any pill you would like as long as we have the recipe and can locate the ingredients. Master charges a fee for his services of course, but I have a feeling that won’t be a problem for you now,” the shopkeeper explained with a smile.

He picked up the box on the counter.

“Also, here, take these pills on the house as a congratulatory gift for taking down the challenge.”

He handed the box containing the three Meridian Nourishment pills to Kenja.

Kenja grinned when he heard this and thanked the shopkeeper.

“I will make sure to return for more pills,” he assured the shopkeeper. Kenja knew to remind every clerk about the future business they would have to ensure a memorable and lasting relationship.

“I saw that your cave number is 5-5. I will send a servant as soon as the order is ready.”

Kenja bowed and turned to leave. As he reached the door, he stopped and turned around.

“If I wanted to know exactly how many credits I have now, where should I go?” he asked.

The shopkeeper put on a pained expression. “I am not sure since I haven’t encountered such a problem before, but I would ask the spiritual architects at their studio. Second Elder is the one who made these tools in the first place.”

“An elder made these?” Kenja exclaimed in surprise, glancing at the machine. The shopkeeper gave his affirmation before Kenja turned and walked out the store.

The shopkeeper sighed. He hadn’t exchanged names with this ‘sister’ earlier, and he had hoped that Kenja would bring it up at some point. It would have been impolite to ask for the sister’s name only after she had gained so many sect credits.

Meanwhile outside, the sect was abuzz with the news.

“Someone beat a challenge!” a disciple announced to his friends.

“Which challenge was it?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t Elder Kondo’s challenge.”

“Oh wow, I can already feel the increased Qi!”

“I’m going back to the cave to cultivate. Don’t look for me for the next two days!”

Whenever a challenge was beaten, the moat around the city temporarily flowed faster. As a result, the sect was rewarded with an increase in natural Qi that would benefit everyone’s cultivation speed and quality, so people would know when a challenge was beaten by observing the moat and the influx of Qi. The challenger would be considered a hero amongst his peers.

Already far away from the apothecary on his way out of the sect, the fourth elder stopped and looked at the moat which was flowing much faster than normal. He furrowed his brows in contemplation.

‘Someone has completed a challenge? It couldn’t have been her...’

Normally, he would be happy to find out that one of his nieces or nephews had overcome a difficult sect challenge, but the timing was too coincidental. If the challenge he had been trying to defeat for nearly a decade was taken down by only a recently-initiated Qi Flourishing disciple...well, he didn’t even consider it a possibility.

He shook his head and smiled as he continued on his way towards the sect’s exit. He silently congratulated the young one who had brought joy to the sect with their accomplishment.

Kenja walked through the sect which appeared extremely lively when compared to earlier that day, but he was too distracted by his thoughts to mind the difference.

“We’re rich now! Let’s hit the market and buy some things. Your sensei’s shell here could use some Anti-Rust Wax from the smithery,” Snail suggested.

“You use weapon wax on your shell? Your shell isn’t even metallic; it can’t rust!”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t look presentable? Who do you think I am? Listen disciple, ‘Snail-sensei’s Teaching, Number 72: Always look good!’ You would do well to remember this one,” he lectured.

“Oh, I see, Snail-sensei. And what was your seventy-first teaching?” Kenja inquired.

Snail paused for a moment as Kenja continued to walk through the bustling street.

“Pay extra attention to the next teaching!” Snail declared, laughing out loud.

‘This snail……’

Kenja sighed. “Your wax will have to wait. I want to visit the spiritual architects’ studio and figure out how many credits I have.”

“We have, you mean,” he corrected Kenja.

“Yes, yes, I’ll get you your wax. Now hush, so I can focus on remembering where the studio was.”

Kenja continued retracing his steps till he found the fancy-looking building he saw on his first day here. It was the only building with recently-wiped windows and lanterns holding candles. The door had a well-polished door knocker in the shape of a dragon carrying a ring in its mouth.

Underneath the knocker, a sign was hung on the door.

Don’t Knock!

‘What the hell? Why have a door knocker then?’

Kenja felt a slight reluctance towards meeting the eccentric person that would install a door knocker and then forbid people from using it, but he endured it and opened the door. He had endured Snail’s annoying banter for the past few days, so he felt confident that, unless a second talking snail showed up, he could handle whatever annoyances were thrown his way.

Inside was a small room with no windows. It had a fireplace on the left and a table that stretched alongside the right wall. On the table, he could see a few stacks of books, a couple of bolts and screws, as well as two of the machines he saw at the apothecary.

Kenja felt his body relax when he saw that the dials on one of the machines had an upper limit of ten million.

Ahead of him, a chubby female disciple was reading a book over a counter as a teapot floated in mid air next to her. A floating flame appeared to be warming up the teapot from below.

Kenja calmly approached the female disciple, but she was too engrossed in the book she was reading to notice his presence.

‘If I could circulate some Qi, she would probably sense me.’

Kenja laughed inwardly at the irony. Unless someone was actively inspecting him, they wouldn’t notice the power fluctuations coming off of him since he couldn’t circulate any Qi without immense concentration and exertion. He let out a dry cough.

The woman looked up in surprise. She quickly looked over Kenja and clasped her hands.

“Senior sister, junior welcomes you to our studio. Please forgive my earlier rudeness. I was distracted with my studies,” the low-level Qi Flourishing disciple apologized.

Kenja responded with a light chuckle. “No need for the formalities. I am new to the sect, and I came here to have some questions answered.”

“I am merely master’s assistant, but I shall give it my all to help senior sister,” she announced bravely.

Kenja pulled out his keystone. “I wish to see how many credits I have. May I use your contraption over there?”

“You wish to use the TD? Of course, senior sister. Go right ahead.”

“TD? What does TD mean?” Kenja queried, wide-eyed at the new term.

The plump outer sect disciple made a face full of anguish. “It means Tah-tuh-trah...one moment.”

She opened the book she was reading on her counter and skimmed through the pages in the first half. The pages were handwritten with barely legible words that were more likely to cause pain for the reader rather than educate them. She finally stopped at a page and looked back to Kenja.

“Tribulatory Demarcator.”

“It stands for Tribulatory Demarcator?”

“Yes.” This junior sister gave Kenja a defeated look, so Kenja decided against continuing the discussion about the name and walked over to the Tribulatory Demarcator.

“He named it ‘Tribulatory Demarcator’? Even ‘Terrible Denomination’ would be more suitable than that, eh, disciple,” Snail said as he waited for Kenja to laugh.

‘Has his time in the forest made his sense of humor stale or was he bad at making jokes since the beginning? My laughs don’t come that cheaply, Snail!’ Kenja offered Snail no response.

He arrived in front of the machine and placed his keystone in the socket. The assistant made herself busy, fanning the flame of the teapot. It was impolite to look at one’s sect credits without their permission, similar to how one would not look inside another’s wallet or purse.

The dial quickly rotated to the six million marker before slowing down and stopping a little bit past the seven million marker.

‘I have more than seven million sect credits?!’ Kenja’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“Did I say Anti-Rust Wax? I meant their Superlative Slippery Shiny Wax Coating and some high-class Imperial Immortal Tea Leaves. A couple hundred leaves should suffice for now. Also…” Snail droned on in Kenja’s ear when a realization suddenly hit Kenja.

‘How much is a sect credit worth?’

He had yet to buy anything or seen the price of a familiar item, so he wasn’t sure how to estimate his wealth. The only thing he remembered was that the Fourth Elder had approximately fifty thousand credits, but the elder seemed to spend his credits in a wasteful manner.

Kenja took his keystone out of the socket and turned to the tea-making junior.

“Sister, how many credits would it take to purchase a low-tier spirit stone?”

She blinked several times at the strange question until she remembered that this senior sister was new to the sect.

“The sect’s treasurer will award one low-tier spirit stone for one hundred sect credits,” she answered Kenja.

“I see. And is there a reason why one hundred is the standard, or was this an arbitrary measurement decided by the elders?”

The assistant put on an agitated smile as she kept fanning the flame. She wasn’t upset with Kenja, but she was frustrated that this “senior sister” kept asking difficult-to-answer questions.

“I am not too sure. Master explained to me several times before, but I only grasped the surface of what he said,” she dropped the fan on the table, and the flame vanished. She returned to her book and skimmed through the pages in the second half before stopping at a page and turning the book around for Kenja to read.

Kenja walked to the counter and read the book.

Tribulation stones harness the Yang energy neighboring it and converts it into an electrical discharge that is stored within its inner core which has a nearly limitless capacity. The outer perimeter of the core not only percolates the Yin from the Yang but also prevents the outward effusion of the stored power.

Using a strong enough conductor, the stored power can be released and transmitted to a proper outlet for mechanical purposes, utilized in pill or weapon creation or even for the use in cultivating techniques relating to the extreme Yang attribute or lightning properties.

Kenja’s vocabulary was limited to what he taught himself and to what books or lessons he could sneak a peek at, so he wasn’t capable of fully understanding this master’s elaborate jargon, but he could comprehend his key points.

Everything is made up of Yin and Yang, and these ‘keystones’ are tribulation stones that filter the Yin out as it draws in and converts the Yang into electrical energy before storing it inside its core. The outer perimeter acts as both, a filter that kept the Yin out and an insulator that kept the electricity stored inside.

By using some type of machine or material, the stored energy could be utilized in several different ways which is probably why it could be used as an economical currency here. He understood the gist of the notebook’s message and returned it to the assistant.

The junior sister continued to smile at Kenja, praying for no more difficult questions.

Kenja experienced another shocking realization. “Wait, these stones will naturally accrue credits?”

The assistant’s smile became joyfully sincere and her cheeks rose to the bottom of her eyelids. Finally, a question she could easily answer!

“Yes. Your keystone will get three to five sect credits every day. How much exactly all depends on your luck!”

She finished her sentence happily when a loud yell came from the room behind her.

“ARACHA, BRING ME THE TEA!”

Aracha blushed when she heard the yell.

“Please, excuse me. Master needs his tea to concentrate.”

“No need to worry about me. Please, attend to your master.”

She nodded and took the tea with her to the back room, leaving Kenja alone with his thoughts.

‘Based on luck? I doubt that.’

Kenja didn’t have a lot of experience with tribulation stones, but he had a feeling that there was more to its daily gain in stored energy than pure luck.

He turned to leave when he looked over to the machine he hadn’t used before. There were no dials on it, and one of its sockets had something in it. A clear-white keystone sat in the right socket.

He approached the machine and looked closer at the socket.

‘Isn’t this a challenge stone?’